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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Fedora 17 LiveCD-Creator Thumbdrive Step-by-step

This process creates a custom bootable thumbdrive with the latest available Fedora 17 software. In addition, common repositories are preconfigured, and the list of software packages on the currently running system is used as the basis for the thumbdrive image.

As root, perform the following:

 Start by cleaning up problems on the system, reported by:

package-cleanup --orphanspackage-cleanup --problems

Since the package list will be created from the running system, problems here will be problems in the creation of the image. If there are known issues, you will need to manually adjust the package list in thumbdrive.ks that gets created below. If you have installed a non-repository package, for example HandBrake-gui, you will need to remove HandBrake-gui from the list of packages in thumbdrive.ks.

 Create a working directory structure and change to it:

mkdir -p thumbdrive/livecd/cachecd thumbdrive

 vi thumbdrive.ks and add the following. Modify options as you see fit:

You can edit thumbdrive.ks and remove any packages you don't want. For example, I typically remove large games and their data files (alienarena, tremulous, etc). Also, any packages that you added that are not in repositories (see the package-cleanup, above) should be removed or additional 'repo' entries should be added.

 Wait for the bash '#' prompt. You are now chrooted into the created image, so any changes you make are to the image, and not the real system. Any messages you receive, like disabling services, are for the services in the image.

 adduser liveuser as the default login user.

 passwd -d liveuser to remove the password for liveuser. Alternatively, you can set a password by omitting -d for liveuser and root:

passwd liveuserpasswd root

 vi /etc/gdm/custom.conf and add:

[daemon]AutomaticLoginEnable=trueAutomaticLogin=liveuser

 vi /etc/sysconfig/firstboot and add:

RUN_FIRSTBOOT=NO

 sync to write all updates in the image.

 exit to continue the creation process. The next prompt you receive will be from the real system, not the image.

 You can test the image by booting it virtually, for example:

qemu-kvm -m 1024 -hda F17-LiveCD.iso

 If it looks good, you can put it on a thumbdrive with the dd command. For this example, the thumbdrive is on /dev/sdX

ALL DATA WILL BE DESTROYED ON THE THE DEVICE SPECIFIED - MAKE SURE IT'S CORRECT